When people are asked what famous living person they’d most like to have dinner with, Jane Goodall’s name probably comes up a lot. Sure, for some, the renowned primatologist might come after other beloved and admired household names, Nelson Mandela, say, or Leonard Cohen, or maybe even Kim Kardashian, but sharing a sandwich with Goodall—a U.N. Messenger of Peace and the only human ever accepted into chimpanzee society—would no doubt be a transporting experience.

Calgary’s Brian Keating would know. A fan of the British conservationist since he first saw her on National Geographic TV when he was 12, the Calgary Zoo’s honourary conservation advisor now calls Goodall a friend, a mentor and an occasional dinner companion. In fact, he’s hoping to share a meal with Goodall following her Unique Lives & Experiences appearance on April 22 at the Jack Singer, but, given her packed lecture schedule, which requires Goodall to travel upwards of 300 days a year, he won’t count on it.

Keating, the zoo’s former head of conservation outreach, is anything but cool about his famous friend. “She has a wonderful sense of humour, she’s very encouraging, she’s genuine, there are no airs there,” says Keating. “I’ve heard it said that walking with Jane Goodall is like walking with Gandhi. I never walked with Gandhi, but I know that Jane has this amazing way of drawing you into her world.” Indeed, it’s this brand of uninhibited enthusiasm for animals, people, travel and life in general that makes Keating, like Goodall, an in-demand speaker himself. But Keating partly credits his unique relationship with Goodall, which began in 1987, with inspiring and guiding his enviable career to this day.

When Keating booked Goodall for her first of many talks in Calgary, the famous conservationist had already earned a Ph.D. from Cambridge (making history by bypassing an undergraduate degree), spent decades studying chimp behaviour in Tanzania’s Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve and made key discoveries we now take for granted, such as that chimps, like humans, have emotional lives. She had also already established her influential Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation and won a dozen major conservation and humanitarian awards from around the world. In other words, in 1987, Goodall was a big deal.

Keating, on the other hand, was at the front end of his illustrious

career that would eventually make his name synonymous with the Calgary Zoo’s conservation efforts. Still, that didn’t stop him from approaching his childhood hero after her sold-out appearance at the Jubilee Auditorium to invite her to join him and his wife, Dee, on a two-day trip to Banff National Park. “I made sure the invitation wasn’t political at all; it was just about friendship and chatting about coyotes.” To Keating’s everlasting delight, Goodall enthusiastically agreed. “To have the chance to hike and watch wildlife with Jane Goodall? It was incredible just to be with this remarkable woman.”

Seemingly at ease with Goodall, who for 22 months lived in the African jungle as the lowest ranked member of a chimpanzee troop, Alberta’s wildlife put on a spectacular show. “The three of us saw bighorn sheep butting heads, elk go antler to antler and a coyote pouncing on field mice,” recalls Keating. The friendship was sealed when Goodall, as she left the Keatings to go through customs at the Calgary airport, turned and said, “You and Dee be sure to come and visit me in Gombe, won’t you?”

It was the invitation of a lifetime. Six months later, the couple arrived in Tanzania to spend a week with Goodall, following chimps from dawn until dusk, and cooking her dinners over an open fire (Keating says Goodall doesn’t fuss much with food prep when she’s in the jungle). The couple met several descendants of the “F” family of chimps whom Goodall named in the 1960s at a time when her fellow ethnologists adhered to a strict doctrine of numbering rather than naming animals in order to keep their distance (Freud, Frodo and Flo, whose obiturary ran in the London Times were some of the chimps she made famous).

Keating’s fascination with Goodall’s chimps increased his lifelong interest in primates. “I have since been to see the mountain gorillas of Uganda and Rwanda at least a dozen times, and spent nearly a month in Borneo, hiking and exploring in search of wild orangutans.” His time in Gombe also helped open a door for Keating at the University of Calgary, which subsequently offered him a teaching position in the anthropology department where he continues to teach as an adjunct professor.

When, a few years after Gombe, Keating was considering a career change at the zoo, from curator of education to the new position of conservation coordinator, he knew who to call for advice. “Jane told me something that became the core philosophy of the program,” says Keating, who would go on to develop and head up the zoo’s conservation outreach department for 15 years. “She said, ‘When you give money, give it to people you trust completely, people you trust like you would your own brother.’” Keating says it was excellent advice that has made him very selective when choosing conservation projects for the Zoo, including what Keating calls their “crowing program,” a partnership with a Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary in Ghana where, because of poaching and loss of habitat, only two hippo populations remain.

While Keating wasn’t able to accept a position as board member for the Canadian chapter of the Jane Goodall Institute due to conflict of interest, Dee—a physician and equally enthusiastic amateur conservationist—took the spot. Keating is unapologetic about his reasons for accompanying Dee to board meetings across the country: “That gave us further access to Jane and her mentorship.” As well, he has hosted Goodall several more times at the Jubilee and the Jack Singer, pleasing her many Calgary fans and allowing Keating to keep in touch with her over the years.

Keating’s devotion to Goodall’s cause recently resulted in a partnership with Goodall’s son Grub (his real name is Hugo van Lawick but if you grew up in the Tanzanian bush, you can get away with a handle like Grub). Last fall, Goodall assisted Keating connecting him with people who could help him organize a small film crew in southern Tanzania where he worked with Grub, filming a documentary about a sacred hippo pool that is being threatened by development. The film will be released later this year; visit Keating’s website goingwild.org for details on when and where (that’s also the place to go if you want to read about whatever current adventure he’s on or book him for one of his famously entertaining nature talks).

Keating will of course be attending Goodall’s lecture on Monday, but given how busy the grand dame of primatology is, he may be looking for a dinner date at the end of it. Maybe you’ll be the one bold enough to invite him out for a nosh.

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